But, thought Ghitta, it could also be something quite different. The fact that the door had been locked meant that someone was concerned to hide the loathsome object. Now, if it were a monster, hers was no longer a shocking and gratuitous intrusion; it would mean she had stumbled upon an awful secret surrounded by a thousand different precautions, protected by untold complicity. Why, for instance, should Enrico have lied? There was good reason to believe that he was au fait with what was going on and that that was why he had gone up there in the first place. Enrico, apparently such a decent type? For whom would he do such a thing? Anyhow, what could his action mean? Why hadn’t he seemed at all annoyed? Surely he would have panicked, seeing his fearful secret so endangered? But his good-humored sympathy and understanding hadn’t deserted him for a moment. How was that? Or had he in fact seen nothing but an old sack—he was such a simple type. So was there someone else concerned to conceal this hideous thing?
That’s enough of that, said Ghitta to herself, feeling that she was losing the thread of her own argument. Anyhow, what does it matter to me? It’s not an ogre or a dragon, nothing really dangerous. If someone has something as horrible as that to hide, so much the worse for him. Yet the girl felt that the whole house was tainted by its presence. The very idea of its possible existence was enough to poison her life within those walls. Should she leave? But where could she go? After all, the family had been so good to her and she was already quite attached to the three children. And would she feel any freer elsewhere? Might other houses, other towns, not hold similar horrors?
But the next morning, as so often miraculously happens, all these thoughts had melted into thin air. Her fears, her midnight escapade and her intention of bringing things into the open and leaving the family all seemed absolutely ridiculous. The rays of the sun filtering through the shutters were sufficient to bring her a feeling of liberation which had seemed almost impossible.
But when, on her way out for a walk with the two older children, she asked casually for the key of the lumber room to take up various old papers, and the portress, not in the least surprised at the question, said she didn’t know where it was, perhaps her husband had it and he was out at present, or that it had been temporarily given to a tenant—and all this corresponded oddly to her hypotheses of last night—it was then that Ghitta started to feel worried again. Although she had no real reason for thinking so, she decided that a series of pretexts was going to be given to prevent her being given the key; that after her casual giving of the alarm yesterday, various forces would be marshaled to stifle the scandal and to make a joke of it all, as though it were all the product of the overworked, oversensitive imagination of a young woman: a web of deception, precise as clockwork, put into action entirely for her benefit; she was to be treated with all possible respect and indulgence but from now on, if she were to persist in her desire for further knowledge, there might be open hostilities and retribution.
It was so much simpler to believe that the monster was all a figment of her imagination, that Enrico had been telling the truth and had shut the door because he thought it better, that he or some tenant now had the key, in short that there was absolutely nothing to it. Yet for some reason Ghitta pursued her suspicions doggedly, interpreted the most harmless signs as worrying symptoms, imagined the wildest plots. Her pride would not allow her to let the matter drop. She would have liked to discuss it with someone, but didn’t know with whom. Stefano, her fiancé, was far away. Don Angelo, her confessor? That would be no good, he wouldn’t believe her. Signora Goggi? The last person to discuss it with; Ghitta was too well acquainted with women of good society and their petty suspicions. Just as they were back at the house, about twenty yards from the main door, Ghitta and the two children met Signor Gerolamo, the portress’s father, a good-humored little old man whose one concern in life was to pass the time and who was therefore always ready for a chat. He appeared out of the lodge at that very moment and seemed especially pleased to have met Ghitta.
“Ah, Miss Freilaber,” he exclaimed, coming toward her, “not a word, Gina’s already told me everything. . . . But whatever were you thinking of, my dear young lady?” He winked foolishly, as though implying that he knew all about it. Then, with a gesture of sudden affectionate intimacy, almost of solidarity, he spoke in her ear: “and you’re by no means the first, you know!”
Ghitta, annoyed at first by these apparently pointless confidences, turned around and looked him in the face. “No, no,” he repeated with the same lunatic gaiety, “don’t look at me like that!” and he proceeded to recount an incident which he obviously regarded as a delightful anecdote: one morning seven years ago when he, Gina’s father, had still been porter there, the previous owner had come down from the attic as pale as a sheet and, when asked what had happened, had given evasive replies but had told his accountant that very evening that he intended to sell the house; as indeed he had done, remarkably quickly; so much so that for some time afterward people had mentioned ghosts and so on in connection with the sale.
At that juncture Ghitta, alarmed
